Market and crop development specialists in Africa are making important steps towards embedding customer- and product-driven breeding practices in the region in 2020.
One the chief obstacles to agricultural development in Africa is the low rate at which farmers adopt improved varieties with the potential to improve livelihoods, resilience, food security and better nutrition.
On January 15, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) held a one-day workshop with users of its genotyping and data analytics services at the 2020 International Plant and Animal Genome (PAG) conference, held in San Diego, USA.
Members of the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) advisory committee met on 17-18 January to review progress on the development of a full-spectrum breeding data management software.
A common vision for CGIAR breeding backed by funders, with a view to One CGIAR
At its 2019 annual meeting, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform outlined an ambitious vision for breeding program modernization designed to deliver on the two key metrics demanded by the donors behind Crops to End Hunger: greater rates of variety turnover and genetic gain in farmers’ fields.
During the week of 12 August 2019, cassava and yam breeders from CGIAR and national agricultural research centers in Colombia, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania participated in an EiB-sponsored visit to Brazil.
After carrying out assessments at 13 CGIAR centers, the trip was one of the improvement opportunities identified by EiB breeding operations and phenotyping specialists Steve Corak and Gustavo Teixeira.
First steps taken to unify CGIAR-NARS breeding software
Photo credit: CIMMYT / Eleusis Llanderal Arango
From 21 October to 1 November, software developers and administrators from several breeding software projects met at the headquarters of the International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico to work on delivering an integrated solution to crop breeders.
By Jerome Bossuet
From 10-12 September, members of the Global Maize Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) team met with breeders, seed system specialists, research associates, technicians and enabling technology leads from Kenya and Zimbabwe for a costing workshop.
As scientists and professionals, our instinct is to calculate and map out the way ahead, but science and technology is only the tip of the iceberg; lasting impact will come by first changing our behaviors, not the other way around.
In March 2019, EiB surveyed its members to identify the models of equipment currently used to digitize breeding operations.
These include package printers, label printers, barcode readers, electronic data collectors and seed counters that can be used to speed up, standardize and introduce efficiency savings into breeding program operations.
The survey results will be used to guide the outreach agenda of EiB module leaders, while the makes and models of equipment preferred by EiB users are available for reference on the EiB Toolbox.
